What financial information MUST be included on FAFSA vs what should be left out?

Great question! Here's what you NEED to include on the FAFSA: - Checking/savings accounts - Investment accounts (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 529 plans, etc.) - Business assets (if you own >50% of a business with 100+ employees) - Investment properties - Any inheritance money in accessible accounts What you DON'T need to include: - Your primary residence home equity - Retirement accounts (401k, IRA, pension plans) - Life insurance policies - Personal possessions (cars, jewelry, etc.) Make sure any inheritance money sitting in accessible accounts IS reported as both an asset AND as income for the year you received it. The college fund for your daughter DOES need to be reported as a parent asset if it's a 529 or similar investment account.

DONT REPORT ANYTHING THEY DONT SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR!!! i messed up last year and included my retirement and they counted it against us even though it shouldnt count!! took MONTHS to get fixed and my daughter almost lost her pell grant because of it! the FAFSA ppl will take ANY excuse to give less money!!

anyone else notice the FAFSA asks way less questions this year??? filled it out last week and it took like 20 min instead of 2 hours like last year

To answer your specific question about the inheritance - yes, you must report it if it's in a bank account or investment account. The FAFSA looks at both income and assets. The inheritance would have been reported as income in the tax year you received it, and now it's considered an asset if you still have it in an accessible account. For your daughter's college fund, if it's a 529 plan, it's reported as a parent asset regardless of which child is the beneficiary. Parent assets are assessed at a maximum of 5.64% for aid calculations, so having savings impacts aid eligibility much less than most people think. One last thing - make sure your son reports his assets separately from yours. Student assets are assessed at 20% rate versus the parent rate of 5.64%, so it's important to keep that distinction clear on the form.

when i did my fafsa i just copied the numbers from my tax return for the income parts and it worked out fine. dont overthink it

I had a similar question when helping my daughter with her FAFSA last month. I was confused about reporting our rental property. After spending THREE DAYS trying to get through to someone at Federal Student Aid, I finally discovered Claimyr (claimyr.com). They connected me to an FSA agent in about 20 minutes instead of waiting on hold for hours. The agent confirmed that rental properties should be reported as investments, but NOT our primary home. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Definitely worth it when you have specific questions about asset reporting that could affect thousands in aid!

my cousin didn't report his bitcoin and got like $5000 more in grants just saying lol

One thing I learned the hard way - if your family owns part of a business or farm, the rules get REALLY complicated. We had to refile our FAFSA twice because we misunderstood how to report our family business. Definitely get professional help if you're in that situation!

Thanks everyone for all the helpful responses! I feel much more confident about what we need to report now. Just to summarize what I've learned: - We DO report: bank accounts, investments including our daughter's 529, and the inheritance money - We DON'T report: our home, retirement accounts, personal property - My son's personal checking account gets reported as HIS asset (at the higher 20% assessment rate) I'm going to start the application tonight and will update if I run into any other confusing questions!

Good luck with your FAFSA application! Just wanted to add one more thing that might be helpful - make sure to keep documentation of all the assets you're reporting (bank statements, investment account statements, etc.) as of the date you submit your FAFSA. Sometimes schools will ask for verification documents later, and having everything organized will make that process much smoother if you get selected for verification. Also, don't forget that you can make corrections to your FAFSA after submitting if you realize you made an error - it's better to fix mistakes than to leave them uncorrected!